


5 Times Matthew Scott Missed Out on Having a Family, and One Time He Didn't

by igiveup101



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen, a few other characters show up, by 'underage' i mean scott and annie and it's only referenced and not explicit at all, mostly angst, tagging just in case though, with a bit of fluff for an ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:15:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4297341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igiveup101/pseuds/igiveup101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Times Matthew Scott Missed Out on Having a Family, and One Time He Didn't

1.  
Matt wasn’t old enough when his parents died to really be able to remember them now. He assumes they were good people; he remembers missing them like hell the first few years. He never knew any of their friends, and there seemed to be no other family members- no uncles, aunts, anything- to ask. 

He thinks they must have been a family, though. If he thinks hard enough, he can almost remember how his mother looked when she bandaged up his scraped knee, or the way his father smiled when he came home. Matt knows he’s probably just imagining it, but he likes to pretend anyway.

He imagines that they liked to take him to the park. On hot summer days, they all went out for ice cream together. If the crash hadn’t happened, they would have taken him to his first day of school. They would have helped him with his homework. His father would have stumbled over an awkward attempt at a speech about the birds and the bees. His mother would have embarrassed him by wiping crumbs of his cheek with her spit in front of his friends. They would have done all those things he saw his friends doing, all the things the families did in the movies and on TV.

But the crash did happen. So they never took him to school, they never helped him figure out long division, they never got to be a family. They never got the chance.

2.  
When his parents died, there had been some debate about where Matt would go. There was no next of kin to be found, and for a while he went into foster care. Fortunately for him, he was taken in by a priest not long after, and that priest was the one who raised him.

In a lot of ways, Father George became Matt’s new dad. It rubbed him a little the wrong way to hear everyone else call the priest Father too, because he was supposed to be Matt’s dad now. Still, as much as the priest took care of him, and as much as Matt loved him, they always fell just short of being a family.

It might have had something to do with the fact that Father George often had church business to attend to. Maybe it was because so much of their time together was dedicated to teaching Matt the details of salvation. 

And maybe it was because Matt had to start taking care of the Father himself a few years later. It wasn’t hard, exactly- that wasn’t the right word. Matt learned how to lead the priest back to the rectory and into his room quietly and without raising a fuss pretty quickly. It was a little harder when the man was unconscious or covered in his own vomit, but Matt found that if he really needed it, someone would take pity on him and help out.

He tried to get him to stop, of course. He reminded the Father that this wasn’t what priests were supposed to do; it wasn’t what God wanted. That never really seemed to help. Things only seemed to get worse, actually. Matt didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He helped Father George when he could, asking someone else when he couldn’t. But the bad nights kept happening more often, and the priest seemed to get drunker and drunker. 

Matt wasn’t surprised when he found Father George dead, exactly. He was sad and he was angry, and he felt guilt and shame and regret for having failed him. But he wasn’t really surprised. He’d known this day was going to come soon, he should have tried harder to avoid it. But he hadn’t, and there was no point in trying now.

He gave up on hoping he might still get that family now. He went back into foster care for a year and a half, until he turned 18. Matt stayed with plenty of families during that time, but they were never really his. 

3.  
Matt had really wanted to join the clergy, he had. He’d spent over a decade in a church already, reminded of the Holy Father daily. He thought this was his destiny- this was how he could atone for his sins. This would be his family- him and the other priests. 

But he’d wrecked it. For almost nothing. A moment of bliss, maybe, but little else. He’d ruined everything. There was no way he could join the clergy now. Even if no one ever found out, he’d know. He’d know that he threw it all away, turned his back on the Lord over teenage hormones. 

And now Annie was pregnant. She wasn’t going to keep the baby- she’d told him so herself. She couldn’t, she was only 16. A child couldn’t raise another child. And Matt tried his best to be understanding. But at the same time, knowing he was letting his own kid die felt horribly wrong. How could he become a priest, vow to spread the good word of the Lord, when he’d disappointed God so badly himself? 

So he lets go of those dreams. Everything had to be part of God’s plan, he reasoned. So if God didn’t want him finding a family with the clergy, then he wouldn’t. He would have to find one somewhere else.

4.  
Matt had slept with Annie in a moment of thoughtlessness. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He’d been having a bad day, and he was angry. Angry that he’d lost his parents when he was only four, angry that Father George had drank himself to death and angry that he’d let him do it. Angry that he was back in foster care. Angry that he’d been following the word of God almost his whole life, and it had never done him any good. So he decided to break a rule for once and see if that worked out any better.

It didn’t. As soon as it was over, they’d lay in bed, both thinking over what had just happened, both feeling a twinge of regret. A few weeks later, Annie had come to him and told him she was pregnant. There was a small flame of excitement among the rising tide of panic in his chest, and Matt vowed to himself that whatever happened, he would be there for this kid. This baby would grow up with a real family, and he would know he was loved. 

That small feeling left when she told him a few days later that she wasn’t keeping the baby. He’d argued with her at first, but ultimately he knew that it was her choice. As much as it killed him to know that he’d never get to have that kid, that those thoughts of taking him to the park and helping him with his homework were pure imagination, that he was letting down his own child, it wasn’t his body. 

Matt never really saw Annie again after that. He never forgot her, though. He never forgot the kid he almost had. So when he read the letter saying she wanted to see him again after all those years, it took less than a second to know where he’d be spending the day.

Then he found out he was the kid’s namesake- his father, too. It didn’t process immediately; when it did, he almost thought he would die. His kid had been out there the entire time, and Matt had wasted all those years in ignorance. He’d missed out on what was, in all likelihood, his last chance. 

He had a son. But he was a literal universe away, rotting in space while his son waited alone all day for his mom to come home. Annie wouldn’t take Matt’s money to let him help them, either. He couldn’t even tell them who he was- it was classified, and they wouldn’t believe him anyway. Matt only got to talk to his son for a few minutes, and it would probably be his only chance until the crew of Destiny got back to Earth. If they ever got back.

It kept him up at night, wondering what Annie had told Matthew Jr. about his father. Had she said anything at all? Did little Matt know his father hadn’t known about him before? Did he know his father loved him even though he barely knew him? Did he know his father would give anything to get to spend time with him? Or did he think his father had abandoned him, that he wasn’t wanted? Did he hate the man who’d never been there?

Maybe these questions would never be answered. Maybe they’d circle in his head forever. But even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to forget that kid, and how badly he’d let him down. He was starting to think he didn’t deserve a family after all.

+1.  
Matt liked lunch more than he’d ever care to admit. It wasn’t the food- as much as he appreciated Becker’s hard work, effort didn’t translate to good food. In fact, it was just barely this side of edible. No, what Matt liked was getting to spend the empty time between drops from FTL with the friends he’d made since getting stranded in space. 

Chloe, Eli, Greer, and James made for great company, along with the other crew members- usually soldiers- who dropped in and out of their lunch group seemingly at random. He liked watching them laugh when he said something funny- usually on accident. He liked the easy way they joked around; Greer’s aggression translated well to humor if he liked you enough. He liked knowing there were people who’d put their lived on the line for him as quickly as he’d do it for them.

And when TJ reminds him to take care of himself, or when he finds a discarded letter to him from Colonel Young back from when the Colonel had almost put himself in the interface chair, he think maybe this is what family is supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of Matt's thoughts do not reflect the opinion of the author. I’m actually super pro-choice and I know fetuses aren’t alive. I just figure that that might translate differently to a character with Matt’s religious background.  
> The timeline with the priest and the baby is weird. When Matt’s 26, his son is 8, meaning Annie probably got pregnant when Will was 17. Father George drank himself to death when Matt was 16, meaning that the pregnancy happened after. I assume the flashback/vision of Scott talking to him about it was some hallucination, a metaphor, or some sort of religious experience. That’s the only way it really works out.  
> As for the letter, IIRC, Young actually did write two letters before he set off for the chair- one for TJ, and one for Matthew.


End file.
